Program Reviews

The Start Me Up programme completely changed my disposition towards my career goal and ultimate life aspiration in only four weeks’ time. Interning for a Start Up in Bali ultimately allows you to uncover your courage to create, to put yourself, raw and unfiltered, in front of people. It gives you time to develop your own idea, and to realize you don't need a top position in a big corporation to feel fulfilled in life. You'll find that it's quite the opposite, actually!

I'm almost at the end of my internship through Start Me Up right now so I conclude that this has been so much fun! I have done another internship before, so I already had some experience with interning, but getting that real hands-on experience at a startup teaches you so much, it's uncomparable!

I got on a plane to Bali to intern in marketing with a stock photography startup for a month. In the end, a combination of marketing, digital media, social media, Adobe programs, photography, (business) strategies and sales funnels became my daily job, every day was different and that is something I loved!

This past month has passed by so quickly and I'm excited to continue working for this newly launched photography platform as the Marketing and Community Manager! If you are looking for some hands-on experience, you want to get in touch with inspiring, entrepreneurial peeps but don't know how & you want to fully enjoy a city while living and working there: Start Me Up is the way to go ♥.

So... on January, I decided I wanted to learn how it is to build your own company: what struggles do you face, how do you engage your team and make it grow at the right rate, what things do you have to be thinking on... And also I wanted to travel during my gap/sabbatical year. How could I combine these two desires? Then I found Start Me Up.
But only after being here working with an awesome team of australian developers, broadening my mind with insightful events in my coworking space and enjoying all the adventures that Bali has to offer, I realised HOW LUCKY I was to have all this. Until that moment, I didn't realise how special this was. Start Me Up has something to offer that is VERY VERY UNIQUE. How else could I have met a tiny group of three aussies living in Bali that had a revolutionary idea in mind? I tell you: Without Start Me Up, no way!

For anyone who has only had corporate internships and wondering what working for a start-up would be like, this is the program for you. My experience in Bali was unique to anything I had done before. I spent one month in Canggu working from Dojo Bali co-working space.

StartMeUp was able to provide me with opportunities that I believe I would not have been able to attain myself. The exposure to startups and their founders was incredible. I originally planned to only work for a travel-tech startup, but as I socialised with the community within Dojo, I found endless project opportunities. I decided to pick up an SEO project and the business experience was second to none.

The best thing about living in Bali is the time spent outside of work. Frustrated by work? Go surfing. Need a place to chill? Go watch the sunset at the beach. Feeling Hungry? Hop on a scooter for 5 mins and find all types of cuisines available to you for a very affordable price. There are so many opportunities and the social/nightlife scene is great.

My highlight on this trip was climbing (Mount Batur), which was organised by StartMeUp. Setting off from home at 1am, we reached the summit at sunrise and admired the beauty of Bali. The people, the start-up scene and the activities make Bali a fantastic place to intern. For me, this experience has made me definitely think twice about going into corporate.

After spending a number of years pondering the idea of working remotely from wherever, whenever I stumbled upon such a program as StartMeUp. I was blown away by just how much I have learned in combining a lifestyle with work. Being surrounded by such a positive environment as Bali and working on projects and businesses that I am truly passionate about has given me an incredible work ethic to accomplish my goals and dreams. In have been placed on the start up accelerator program to make my business vision a reality in just two weeks I had a platform and will be beta testing with the local Co-working space before scaling outwards, it truly is an exciting time. Soon I will be back in Europe at university with 3 businesses all being run from my laptop. The future looks bright and I have to thank StartMeUp for not only opening the doors to this lifestyle for me but also to the network and knowledge it has given me in all areas of business and life. This is the future of work for those who don't think the traditional path is for them!

Saying it was the best experience of my life it's not even enough. I had the chance to work and live in a very different place respect to the one i use to. I was not afraid of trying something new because you can not say you don't like something if you don't try it first; eating vegan most of the time, doing Yoga, having massages or talking with random people just because i thought they could be nice it was the best way to live my experience and get the best from it. When you see behind and you remember every single moment it means you had such an amazing time and you have memories you will never forget!!

I think the title of this review pretty much summarises my experience interning in Bali. Traveling to somewhere so far away home alone and for the first time was very challenging. But along with the support I got from Start Me Up staff I was able to feel like I belonged there which I think is a valuable achievement. I learned a lot both in terms of career aspirations and about myself. I can really say that after spending a month in Bali the way I look at things have changed in a positive way. I am now more optimistic about my future after experiencing the possibility of an amazing life entrepreneurs and remote workers enjoy in Bali. I can never thank enough to Start Me Up for making this possible.

I did my marketing internship in Ubud for three months and it was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. I worked for a small startup named Growthcasts and during that time I had the opportunity to find out what I want to do after my graduation. My boss gave me the opportunity to develop myself, therefore I learned about email marketing, social media marketing, SEO, programming and website design while (of course) I was helping my internship company.

I loved working from in a co-working space. It was the best place for me to be productive and meet new people. With these new friends I discovered the rest of Bali. During my time off I climbed a volcano, visited temples, went snorkelling, did scooter roadtrips and of course had some fun parties! There are so many fun things to do!

The internship was great. I was working with a startup accelerator and part time on my own startup TX.
I was able to get involved in lots of high impact projects from creating marketing strategies, building websites, doing competitor analysis and research to creating a promotional video. I was also able to get tons of mentoring from industry professionals and could improve my skills in any way I wanted.
Outside work I got up to a huge variety of activities from volcano trekking and mountain biking to surfing and diving, and lots more!
Overall an awesome experience and one which has primed me for future challenges.

I started my internship with a 3 day training in marketing, which I was studying at that moment to prepare me for working at the startup.
The startup was still in its pre-launch phase and so there was a lot of work to do. In general I'm quite lazy but because the team was very small (3 people) you can actually make a huge difference and you have a lot of responsibility which makes it very challenging. This taught me to work very hard and even do extra work just to impress my boss sometimes. And believe me, that's very not me.
However, I grew very close to the team and other people from a volunteer organization down the street, we always helped each other and went out with a huge group or go to the beach, climb volcanoes or go rafting. The Balinese culture is amazing, so beautiful and I love the food and the people.
I have learned more than I ever thought possible and I now have my own startup idea with which my mentor is helping me with. I have the feeling that this internship, unlike ones I did before at corporate companies, actually prepared me for creating my own startup from scratch, I have a huge set of skills now and a great network of like minded people who can help me with everything I need. And all of that in beautiful Bali where a huge community of entrepreneurs is emerging. I definitely recommend an internship at Start Me Up, you will learn more than you ever imagined. Hands down